Managing your money AFTER retirement

[Da' Walleye Assassun]

You hit the nail on the head about Edward Jones. Years ago I had an "advisor" sell me a variable annuity. After five years I was making a whopping 1.6% on the investment. I politely asked him to give me an accounting on the fees and expenses and he went ballistic. Variable annuities have some of the highest fees in the investment world. I learned the hard way. I cashed out the annuity and paid a penalty. Never did get the info from my "advisor".

[Bugler]

Originally Posted by Da' Walleye Assassun

You hit the nail on the head about Edward Jones. Years ago I had an "advisor" sell me a variable annuity. After five years I was making a whopping 1.6% on the investment. I politely asked him to give me an accounting on the fees and expenses and he went ballistic. Variable annuities have some of the highest fees in the investment world. I learned the hard way. I cashed out the annuity and paid a penalty. Never did get the info from my "advisor".

Yes, an advisor selling annuities would make me immediately turn and walk away. Those serve the advisor's best interest.

[Jack G]

I will tell you abut some things I have experienced since I retired 30 years ago at age 55. I feel that most of us who worked, saved and were prudent are surprised how much money we have accumulated over the years. I'm talking about those who have banked several hundred thousand but are far from mega wealthy. Most wealth managers and financial advisors are just different names for the same guy. They will collect information from you about your resources, goals and risk tolerance. Then they will propose an investment portfolio that consists of a certain percentage of stocks, a certain percentage of bonds and an amount to be kept in cash reserves. They will be able to tell you how much percentage this portfolio has grown on average each year since the 1930's and what percentage it lost in its worst year. They will/can explain how they can assist you with lessening tax impact on you and other obstacles.

How your guy gets paid makes a lot of difference. Most charge a fee for advising you or managing your portfolio. Vanguard charges .3 Percent, (thats less than 1/3 percent a year) on the average amount you have invested over the span of each year. Their advisors are salaried, not on commission and they have fiduciary responsibility to you. Vanguard is a stellar organization, been around a long time and as trustworthy,in my opinion as any of these experts.

All these outfits have a caveat that you could lose money following their advice.

Every person is different and has different goals, concerns and questions. Whatever path you pursue think about questions you have and items you want clarified and write them down. If you are going to be paying an advisor don't be embarrassed about asking all the questions, even those you think are dumb. His job is to answer your concerns.

Unless you find someone local to deal with you may find that direct contact with your advisor is limited. I suggest you clarify how long it will take for you to get a phone conversation with him should you want to do so. If there is something about the advisor that you don't like, then talk to another.

Good luck, it's confusing and like being in a maze to start.

Jack

[todalake]

Have brokerage 401 account with Fidelity. My advisor would annually go over my account and make a few suggestions. He did mention that they would manage my account so I took a small sum and turned it over to them for a year. They send out questionnaire about risk tolerance, age, , etc. They basically just run it thru a computer program that divides amount to various Fidelity funds based on answers from questionnaire. It would re-balance monthly to original percents. So if one fund got hot and was going up, it would sell and buy fund that was down. After a year, results were worse than my DIY, so cancelled out and moved all back to self managed. Fidelity and Vanguard do have a lot of good tools to use to help out. Basically do my own indexing with funds of my choosing and re-balancing when i choose to.

[Sportdog]

When reading some of these posts I can’t help but think about the movie “The Great Outdoors“ when Roman (Dan Akroyd) says to Chet (John Candy) about investments. “Sometimes you make 300%, sometimes 200%, and sometimes only 100%. You have to take the bad with the good.”

[bubba800]

Originally Posted by Da' Walleye Assassun

You hit the nail on the head about Edward Jones. Years ago I had an "advisor" sell me a variable annuity. After five years I was making a whopping 1.6% on the investment. I politely asked him to give me an accounting on the fees and expenses and he went ballistic. Variable annuities have some of the highest fees in the investment world. I learned the hard way. I cashed out the annuity and paid a penalty. Never did get the info from my "advisor".

That's an advisor problem, not an Edward Jones problem. It's common sense not to ever buy two things: annuities and timeshares.

[Pilot235]

I have been retired 2.5 years now and have 90+ % of our money with Vanguard in their Personal Advisor Services. Fees are .3% per year. I could not be happier with their service or the returns Vanguard has generated, all in a very balanced risk and diversified portfolio.

[waldowillie]

If you have a degree in Economics I would say do it yourself if it does not interfere with fishing and family.

For myself investing & the tax code is like a high stakes game of billiards and I hire a pool shark so I'll win. I retired a decade ago in my mid-fifties after hiring an honest fiduciary and I have time for family and fishing and my nest egg still keeps growing each year. So the fiduciary charges 1% of your nest egg balance annually, big deal, the tax savings and the return on my investments makes this the smartest money I spend annually. If you seek a good fiduciary like the firm I chose years ago check out https://www.forbes.com/best-in-state.../#9be9e52291d1

[DW]

You confessed your vulnerability due to insufficient background. My recommendation is to take the initiative to learn about retirement investment, withdrawals and timing of social security. I don’t think this is hard to learn. Its ok to get advice but I couldn’t put all my faith in an advisor. Your pensions, if any, are fixed depending on your start date. Your tax deferred accounts are already invested in funds. Your job is to look at the gambit of funds available and understand the risk reward and invest accordingly. Its not rocket science and its ok to change brokerage houses. If you change, and you probably should, you will have to convert the funds via a rollover IRA wherever your tax deferred funds land.

Evaluate your real estate positions for your needs and lifestyle. This is a good time to sell.

Overall, you should expect to see markets decline. I hope not, but the government is doing a lot of the wrong things. Inflation is certain to accelerate as spending is out if control and production is squeezed by tax and regulation causing rising interest rates and that will affect everything.

Buy a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and you will learn and know as much as anybody. They run roughly a dozen articles a year on variations of the 4% withdrawal rule of thumb, for example. And you’ll get real news on everything else.

[Derwood]

Originally Posted by DW

You confessed your vulnerability due to insufficient background. My recommendation is to take the initiative to learn about retirement investment, withdrawals and timing of social security. I don’t think this is hard to learn. Its ok to get advice but I couldn’t put all my faith in an advisor. Your pensions, if any, are fixed depending on your start date. Your tax deferred accounts are already invested in funds. Your job is to look at the gambit of funds available and understand the risk reward and invest accordingly. Its not rocket science and its ok to change brokerage houses. If you change, and you probably should, you will have to convert the funds via a rollover IRA wherever your tax deferred funds land.

Evaluate your real estate positions for your needs and lifestyle. This is a good time to sell.

Overall, you should expect to see markets decline. I hope not, but the government is doing a lot of the wrong things. Inflation is certain to accelerate as spending is out if control and production is squeezed by tax and regulation causing rising interest rates and that will affect everything.

Buy a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and you will learn and know as much as anybody. They run roughly a dozen articles a year on variations of the 4% withdrawal rule of thumb, for example. And you’ll get real news on everything else.

This is some really good advice. I appreciate it!!

I have just been swamped the last few days and have not had time to respond to many the comments. But I have been reading when I get a free minute here and there. Just haven't had much time to sit and type.

Really appreciate folks chiming in to help